I have watched a couple organizations struggle to keep all their constituents connected as part of one tribe.  These are groups who started small and formed a loyal base of supporters.  As the cause grew and the membership increased suddenly there was need for new staff, databases, email newsletters, and phone systems.  Now the staff who were part of the organization’s early years and the original members are trying to regenerate the intimacy that they so cherished.  They have proposed multiple strategies and programs to re-create community.  Some of the initiatives are goals in the strategic plan.

It took me a while to see the common denominator in theses causes.  The challenge is that the tribe has grown larger than the organization’s could handle.  As Seth Godin points out in the aptly named book, Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us a tribe needs two things.  The two elements are a shared interest and a way to communicate (they also need a leader as Seth points out later).  In the case of the aforementioned organizations the shared interest had begun to deviating and communication was fractured.  There is another point.  At about 150 members a tribes typically begins to outgrow a level of intimacy and either splits into separate tribes or become less of a community.  That is why a national organization such as Alcoholics Anynomous has local chapters, so individuals can form their own tribes within a local community and still connect to a larger national tribe.  For an independent day school serving kindergarten through twelfth grade it might mean allowing tribes to form within the Elementary, Middle and High School.

Are you providing your tribe with information that resonates with their shared interest?  Is your enterprise constantly enhancing communication not only to the tribe but between its members?  Does your tribe need to split in order to thrive?